Search This Blog

Letters from Burma

There are few people in the world who capture my heart and mind more than the wonderful group of Burmese kids I met on the streets of Rangoon in 2004. With a significant language barrier, an unreliable postal service and a lack of email, communicating with them has proven rather tricky. Recently I received a pair of letters from them and thanks to a sensationally helpful Burmese man I met in Bangkok, I've managed to have their letters translated into English.

Whilst the English is far from perfect, and the names have been removed due to my (justified) paranoia about their safety, the letters give just a glimpse of life inside one of the world's most intellectually isolated countries.

Letter # 1:

Dear friend I am wating for you and also i am so happy that i get chance to write letter to you i am always remember to you , now i am not stay in 30 street there is only XXX and YYY.

I have been waiting for your letter long time, lastly i'm get it now and you are still rember .as for me same to you when i remember to you i'm always like to look the map which is you gave it to me , thank you so much for your picture i am so gladden that to make friend ship with you .

the time i know that you're going back to Aus- i am feel sad and i always pray for you and may Almighty God Bless you for ever any thing you do in your life i am very very much wish for you that will be a success ,i pray .

i prayed in Christmas day for my self to get happy and will get life of freedom also for you and your family is well . i will write another letter in January , if you will reply for my letter i will so grade and will waiting for your letter with happiness.

friend ,,,, lots of love .

And letter # 2:

Hi friend , , ZZZ write letter for you i am always remember to you and with all of my friends do you remember that some of your friend are left in Burma , when you say good bye in time of you leave we are vwey sad and feel like a some thing is loseing from our heart i am always hearing one words in my ear is that..... my name is Ari .. which is you say to me with Burmese language do you remember ?"

i am send it letter to you on 21.12.2005 also i would like to write another letter but the time is my mother was fever and time of my examination is well that is why i did't get chance to go to city , i so sorry for it . now is nearly for time of water fastival i am really need you here for this time cause of water fastival , this is original Burmese New year and playing with water for every body go with alots of friend i hope you will enjoy and happy .

miss you alots from Burma and may God bless you for ever .

Reading these letters, I long for a free Burma more than ever before.

Get link

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Google+

Email

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Last Sunday was my birthday. The plan was to spend a fair
chunk of it at a picnic in leafy-green Yarralumla, getting some sun on my face
as I ate imported cheese, quaffed sparkling white and threw soft toys at my
baby daughter in the naïve hope that she might make some motion to catch them.

It didn’t quite go to plan (a public yoga presentation and a
howling gale put paid to that) but it was still a whole lot better than last
year’s birthday. That was spent in the cardio-thoracic ward of The Canberra
Hospital, awaiting the results of the biopsy on the huge mass that had been
found in my chest.
There was a small part of me that feared that last year’s
birthday (documented
here) might in fact be my last one. Or at least my last one in the carefree
happy-go-lucky life to which I had become accustomed.
But a year on, I remain largely free of care (perhaps
sometimes too free of it for my own good), still chugging along much as I was
before my cancer struck. The biggest change by far in th…

Super Mario Bros aficionados of the original Nintendo era will remember a certain comforting rhythm to the game. The objective was to slay the dragon each fourth level, and in doing so seek to liberate a princess. But to gain the chance to take on the dragon you needed to confront various minor villains along the way, from Goomba toadstools to Koopa Troopa turtles to weapon-wielding Hammer Brothers, all while navigating rough terrain and preserving health and wealth. But should these challenges prove too demanding a player would never even reach a dragon and the princess would forever remain captive.

Right now the chances for me to battle my dragon are proving rather elusive. Desperate as I am to unsheathe my sword and deliver a strong first blow, instead I find myself in close combat with more pesky minor enemies along the way.

A biopsy on the lump in my mediastinum a few weeks back appears to have caused some complications relating to my lungs. This has left me with a pneumothorax, …